- HUGE redundant/distributed backup of all grassroots media OUTSIDE the transient corporate “cloud”. Our history will be much better “archived” than the dotcoms.

- looking into the future: the grassroots builds and helps to define the “semantic web” - that is web03 in dotcom thinking.

- be part of the future not just a trailing edge transitory past.

* I recognise the plan is to open up the internet (i am still unsure what a portal is btw) so people aren't just going through facebook, google and twitter to find streams of information.

- The internet is inherently P2P. Each computer is the equal of every other. In theory your iphone is the same as far as the internet is concerned to the whole of google. it is core radically horizontal.

- This has been reshaped into a client- server internet were you are a small you – big them. This needs describing better.

* I gather from what is written that there is some sort of categorisation that is going on and mutual promotion in this plan for an open Media network and that some people's sites (the aggregators like ourselves) would key to that promotion and categorisation, but I can't really work out how that works, how the media provider benefits, what the media provider has to do, and what does the average punter get and what would it look for them.

- It's a folksonomy based on open tagging. The original publisher can tag their content, aggregators can re-tag content, end users with embeds/plugins can retag.

- this taging is synched across the OMN thus feed flows will update in (semi) real time.

- the embeds (plugins) and feeds tagging are based on boolean logic, thus you can have + and – and AND etc

- there is a social side to the project (the 4 opens). With tagging there is an etiqette - it's socially acceptable to add tags to re-direct flows rather than remove tags (though mis-tagging can of course be changed). This side needs talking about more.

* I am afraid it sounds like a really good plan, based on evidence and solutions to existing to problems, but it is too vague specifics for me to understand what it is.

- There is a huge hole in the technical knowledge of the media producers. There are social norms against the 4 opens. This project flows against mainstream geek culture.

* Everyone is going to ask

* what do I have to do? how does it help me?

- This is so obvious to me that maybe some one else needs to write this.

* What will it look like?

- on the surfice very little will change, but grassroots media will have the potential to surpass the dotcoms and failing traditional media much like the original indymedia project did in its early days when its page views matched the BBC on big days of action.

* how will it help others?

- Traditional media is practically dead as open media, and grassroots media is hopelessly individualistic, short lived and disconnected to replace this faild traditional media. The social media dotcoms are about social control for private profit – then socal control for political control.

Climate change and our basic environment are running away with our future. The technology network that could help to save us is splintering. We are fucked, the open web, the thing all progressive geeks build on has plateaued and is visible fading.

A project to play a small role.

It's about stupidly simple and naively open it's an original open Internet Project.

Lest we forget the original Internet was people creating pages linking to people created pages this is what the world wide web is. Networking human beings creating communities using technology.

If you make this too complex to start with you miss the point it's about people and communities facilitated by technology it's not about technology facilitating people and communities.

The difference might seem small but it's important as it's the difference between the original Internet and the intranets that grew up and dominated before the open human powered web swept them away.

Geeks not knowing what they have been doing have been destroying this web of humanity and replacing it with a web of machines clever but inhuman.

If you want to reboot a human Internet it needs to be human first rather than machine first. There is a real challenge for geeks to understand this as it flows against their mindset. CP Snows two cultures is still dominant a strong but invisible flow.

If we are to reboot the open web, we need to put human beings activity, community and empowerment at the root. The counter intuitive is to get humans to do more, not less, as we find the basic satisfaction in life by actively creating the world we live in.

The wiki, the blog, the link, the website.

Don't look down on simple

Put people to work doing something they find meaningful, algorithms can stand in the way as much as they can help here.

All community is based on “open standards” that are widely shared. It's the sharing that makes a standard.

Care for the soil as everything to do with the life world comes from it. To move this forward we need to nurture and create the soil of the open internet. All the high tech seeds you are in love with are falling on barren soil.

To nurture this, one stream would be a human powered semantic web that is based on already widely shared “standards”.

Many streams, nature loves diversity and simplistic often pushes over complex.

The OMN is a spring, a stream, a river.

The Base idea works with media items (posts) , sites (community's), people (identity).

It digs history and memory deeply into the network without extra work or much thought (through widely distributed redundant data)

At each stage it empowers the individual, the community and fundamentally horizontalists this empowerment.

Geeks can of course build streams of complex from this common soil.

Just as the original web did it is a stream to expand the commons. From its flow life can grow, such a simple project could help save us all.

My point of view is that both are right, the open internet was a historical “mistake” and with Winer that the are a few waves left, the storm is not over yet. The is a logic to the digitisation of everything and the web was a living example of this let loss, it was a tsunamis that crashed over every part of our cultures and the storm is not over yet.

The commons opened up by the early web are enclosed by dotcons, but their sea defences are low and weak and the digitisation storm still rages.

Communications Minister Ed Vaizey anoucment means that the end of the internet as a open-platform comes much closer http://bit.ly/cpDh2j can't help feeling we are sleep walking into this. Though as the undead of the corporate media is riseng from its coffins - we are seeing the peasants with burning torches in the streets #demo2010 but will site such as #fitwatch still be accessible when we lose #netneutrality and do you think your ISP will allow tools like this http://tcrn.ch/c7Ah15 #Adblock any more? As paula at @fossbox says "well, they're just handing the entire UK infrastructure to corporate empires - no discussion, no appeal :( "

Its a HUGE problem, at http://visionon.tv we wont to be at the centre of the open-internet debate do you wont to help make this happen – if you do join the site and make it real the DIY way.

How can you get involved? What is there at the moment? Let's highlight some of the applications you can currently use:

http://link.openworlds.info is an open database of links to radical projects. These can be added as an embed on websites to create the interlinking that is so important to the open internet’s health. This will be federated.

http://news.openworlds.info is a newsflash service to widen our networks outside facebook. It is building into an open data and open access federated network. You can grab an embed for your site sidebar.

The OMN is owned by nobody and run by nobody. It is merely a set of Stupidly Simple open standards, open databases and working practices. We are building some hubs to flesh the network out.

What is there at the moment.? Let's highlight some of the projects:

http://fund.openworlds.info Open funding network – is a place for media activists to get small amounts of cash for their projects and equipment.

http://link.openworlds.info is an open database of links to radical projects. These can be added as an embed on websites to create the interlinking that is so important to the open Internet’s health. This project is federated.

http://news.openworlds.info is a newsflash service to widen our networks outside facebook. It is an open data and open access federated network. You can grab an embed for your site sidebar.

Those we see as trustworthy are Liars, cheats and swindlers. The bankers and bureaucrats at the moment. I think we have always had this backwards view of the world, is it a failure of the education system or a failure of our collective imagination - the needing to belong.

The 20th century has been the century of advertising driven consumerism. The 19th that of the racial mission of empire before that we had the certainty of religious dogma. In each we trusted and were constrained and betrayed.

We have a backwards view of the world today, though today we have potential way out of this (historic?) limitation or perhaps its hard-wired?

Lets test this and see:

The internet is a revolution in per-per connections in everything that can be digitised.

* we can make and distribute powerful, truth, filled media, we have the tools in our pockits and the open internet is still in place to carry this.

* we can build universal access to education, again the old gatekeepers are still currently not blocking this.

* we can make our own political institutions up from the grassroots – this will be harder.

With these we have the possibility of shining light and action on the Liars, cheats and swindlers – and by doing that we have a possibility to know who to trust and if we know that we can make this world of ours a more humane place.

Some more notes:

Not an isolated individual website – many individual websites in a bigger commons. The open internet used to be a such a commons Q. why is this increasingly no longer so and why/what should/can we do about this.

Subject sites linked by affinity sharing activity streams. An open data cauldron OUTSIDE corporate walled gardens. The sites that make up the network are simply ladeals to add ingredients to the soup and pull out tasty content from the common space. We eat. Sharing promoted links to create a human community and a machine network. We end with a functioning visible community outside the walls (but linked into it) of corporate social-media.

How dose it manifest (small practical thoughts)?

For (small) us we need RSS in to work with sites outside our CMS.

- we have to have anufe working sites to start the process

- can use a JavaScript embed from Liferay on other sites in till they implement a native plug-in to do this.

- at the moment wordpress sites can be content creation and display but not core node aggreagters, dropule sites can be core node aggregaters with the right (very) geeky plugins. The are currently no simpale tools for what needs building.

Small practical PROBLEMS

Were are (the very small) we now?

We aren’t doing a project called visionontv we haven’t be doing this for a year or more. We have been trying to build the open media network (OMN). The issue we have is increasingly this is not been what has been happening. Inward Focus is needed.

Looking (some would say stumbling) forwarded:

Next step. The network will be made up of a sidebar giving updates of all parts of the network

* the only way to cross post to other sites is to post to the original site and it will be aggregated.

The new NEWSFLASH will be shared across all sites as will the LINKS site.

Some guidelines for sites (the small we) are building

Original content will be the top bar - logo and site navigation, the [left] central column and the footer.

SO - only the central culume will have updateing site content (rest static or OMN)

EVERY - permanent site we build needs to be like this...

- one off action sites can break this template as they are sub pages off the main site.

DO THIS NOW

While we have live sites, if we leave this till our sites are cold we fail.

ISSUE we face (both small and big we) - People will complain about the design as they don’t understand what it is for. these complaints (and solutions) are not to be headed as they do not understand the project which is to overcome "stupid individualism" it is a network and networks are process based and always messy.

Using corporate sites such as meetup etc. is ONLY to be done as secondary to the core network site ie. post summary and exerts linking back to the core site. To not understand this is to walk strait back into the place we are moving out of. WHY they are about building a closed and controlled network owned by the corporate world they are our DIRECT COMPATION to what we are trying to do. "we use and abuse" is our motto, it is important not to get caught in there trap. So use them to push the traffic outside them ONLY.

The RSS-in is needed so that sites that "arnt us" can join the network otherwise we are just another dead portal – our project is about avoiding this – this is a no brainer can we get wider co-operation on this.

In the big picture we aren’t a video portal, “visionontv” is just one part of the network and the network isn’t us – we are just planting seedlings – if others do not plant to (bigger) OUR common project we will fail. Leaving the current metaphorical table covered with half empty and dry mouldy soup boles and and in the end the cauldron will be taken away from us. When I look at radical media I see this. Its not a pretty picture and no amount of NGO thinking and action will fix this – the internet came from micro scale DIY culture not the NGO world – the is no resion that it cant be regenerated by this same culture – time to get on with this.

The activist NGO trap - full on social work

The direction of many groups has been to this - and it is fuelled by a deep denial and lots of fog. But the ends in the same place. A place we we all agree we don’t wont to go.

Of course the statagy of sustainability dose not work as NGO's are not rich anufe to cross subsidise and social action dose not make money (aspesheraly in the digital age).

OUTCOME - The action/production is shut down and the NGO become soft social work which is were the funding is.